I received my copy of Peter Grunwald’s Eyebody yesterday and have finished reading it. It was a very interesting read and I am quite interested in the technique. However in order to test this out you have to go to a retreat (the one in the UK is in August) or private lessons (and Mr Grunwald lives in New Zealand..oh how I wish I lived there (and not so I can have eye lessons!). It is fairly expensive too and as much as I am interested in this technique, it is too far in the future currently and well I would rather attempt another way before putting my hand in my pocket for that amount of money! It has, however, made me decide that I shall be booking myself in for a lesson with a natural vision teacher and will be doing that this week. It has also made me interested in the Alexander technique too (which is what the vision teacher I have contacted integrates too).

Anyway, so what is Eyebody? The eyebody method states ‘that every single area of your visual system corresponds with an associated area in the body. Specific malfunctions of vision are linked to specific tensions and contractions in the body. By learning how to ‘direct’ our visual system, the body simultaneously follows, releasing patterns of tension”.

By directing the visual system, he gives his example of how he ‘discovered’ this technique – he noticed that by focusing on his cornea he could affect his chest. If he tried to tighten his cornea his chest would also tighten and when he relaxed it his chest would open up.

This is the basic principle behind the approach (it also stems from the Bates and Alexander techniques). The book is an introduction to this method, and gives you pointers of how to start on your vision journey, however to learn the technique you must attend a retreat or find an instructor/get private lessons, which is somewhat tricky, in my opinion.

This book includes:

• An introduction and Peter’s personal story to letting go of glasses (which you can read for free here)

• How vision works – the physiology of the visual system and explanations of common visual problems. An outline of the eyebody patterns and how a part of the visual system is reflected in part of the body.

• The two types of upper visual cortex tendency – overextended or contracted. The majority of individuals are contracted. We are all one of the other or maybe both – this does not necessarily manifest to a point of making a vision problem.

• The eyebody principles and case studies for each type of visual impairment.

• The eyebody’s application to life and first steps in incorporating the eyebody method into your life. This is very general, although the first step guidance is a bit more specific – giving help for sunning and palming in relation to whether you are a contracted or overextended type. In order to actually utilise the method you do need to find a teacher or workshop as this book will not help you do that – it is only really an introduction.

Despite being interested in this technique and wanting to learn more, I feel it is too much of a stretch right now to get involved in it, so will try my vision teacher and also look into maybe the Alexander technique separate too. It is definitely a very interesting perspective and makes a lot of sense. I shall be attending a workshop for it in May in London, so hopefully I will learn more then.

So after spending the week doing various exercises, I have been somewhat stuck on my vision improvement. My eyes do get flashes of clear vision, but there has been no permanent improvement. As a result I feel I should seek out a vision improvement teacher. This seems to be the most appropriate route and will help me utilise the techniques I have learnt much better than I am doing so at the moment.

I am also waiting on my eyebody book to learn more of how I can aid improvement of my eyes.

This is not to say the techniques have not been useful – my centralisation is a lot better for practising it, I can relax my eyes if I get stressed and generally I feel a lot better, but that is as far as I have progressed. Although I potentially have a lot of strain and emotional tension to let go of, and don’t expect it to happen in a few weeks, I feel an natural vision teacher will help me move a further step along.

My journey so far has been somewhat slow. I have been mostly reading and after reading Sassi’s Blog recently I decided to purchase the eyebody book to learn more. Sassi has had great results with this approach (for more information visit Eye Body) and I now want to know more!

I have been quite unorganised on the exercises but I do still incorporate blinking, moving and centralization into my day. I have found that if I am looking at my bub I am actually centralizing! It seems whenever I look else where I have more trouble doing so and have to just imagine that I am or convince myself.

My eyesight is much clearer than it was 6 weeks ago and my eyes have become less sensitive to sunlight. I used to go out and really have a hard time even slightly having my eyes open, but now I have them fully open. There is still some sensitivity but it is so much better than before. My breathing has still remained how I have wanted. I really need to work on blinking, moving and centralizing a bit more aggressively now and I feel I am ready to start a proper practise and have the time to do so! Also today we had a sunny day, which hopefully means no more cold rainy days. This means I can go do thenning technique with palming which I have wanted to do but haven’t really had the opportunity to in this weather. I know some people use an artificial light for sunning, but I have read several times you should only use sunlight.

So tomorrow I shall be starting and this is what I shall do in the morning and before bed:

• From the natural vision improvement kit I will follow the relaxation part. Releasing tension of my muscles through exercises (I will be starting this after a morning run so that should help too)

• 2 sets of 50 long swings (this requires swaying body left to right, allowing your head and nose to swing softly around the room).

• 50 infinity swings (this is a variation of the long swing but you put your fingers in front of you and follow one hand to right and the other to left in a figure of 8 )

• centralization using 2 pencils.

• Palming again for 10 minutes (in the morning this will be done with sunning so for a little bit longer).

I don’t think this is too much to do on a daily basis and so I should be able to easily stick to it. By next Sunday I should hopefully be able to see some improvement or what these exercises give to me. Before I do this though, I will be working out actually how decent my eyesight is, using the eyesight chart I have, so I can see if there is an improvement in this in a week. I will still also be incorporating throughout the day blinking and moving as much as possible. I seem to struggle now and then with the blinking and lately have been spacing out (I have a lot on my mind!). I catch myself and rectify it though and if I can’t then I usually shut my eyes. I also think my diet is going to help me stay more focused as well. It has given me a surge of energy I have needed and I seem to procrastinate less on tasks.

This evening my sister asked me to give her a lift somewhere. I reluctantly said I would, but this meant putting on my glasses of which I haven’t for over 4 weeks now. I decided to quickly try them before I set out and they were too strong. Even looking through them for a second made me feel sick and dizzy. It was horrible and I wasn’t sure how I would manage to keep them on for half an hour. I started to look for old pairs, but I only found a scratched pair, so had no choice but to use my, now, too strong pair. On top of having to deal with my glasses again, I had to drive in the dark. Not exactly the best combination, but I had to (well I didn’t have to but my problem is I can never say no or I dislike immensely letting people down).

The journey was awful. My eyes kept going in and out of focus. I felt sick, dizzy and could not concentrate on the task at hand; which made me drive a little bit dangerously at times. It was horrible. Trying to fight against the strength of the glasses at the same time as trying to continue my good vision habits of blinking, shifting and centralizing was almost impossible. I did persevere but it was extremely hard, not to mention trying to concentrate on where I was going. I was relieved to get the darn things off my face.

I did notice though that my eyes quickly adjusted back to how they had been for the past 4 weeks (although they are still a little sore from the strain). To me this is a sign that I have been exceeding in good eye practice and that I have made the right choice.

That experience has reinforced my notion never to wear glasses ever again. If that means I can’t drive a car again – so be it. It was awful and I guess having had my glasses off for so long showed me how bad it really is. I now know that I will definitely get my vision back and that I shall be free of this horrible burden to my eyes forever.

So to anyone skeptical of this natural vision improvement malark, I challenge you to take your glasses off for a few weeks, and then put them back on. If you think the only solution is to put up with that strain and stress on your eyes, then you are nuts! You don’t need perfect vision – you can manage in life without it (of course until you improve enough to meet standards ).

I don’t care that my vision isn’t exactly clear right now, but when I put those glasses back on, I realized how very wrong I was seeing through them. Even though my vision is blurred, I know I am seeing properly – more so than through glasses and thus lies my determination in staying this way.

If you are reading this and debating what to do about yours eyes – please take a few weeks off from your glasses. It isn’t hard to adapt to and you will feel a lot better for doing so. It will be the first step to a beautiful journey in recovering your eyes.

This week I have been reading Relearning to See like a nutter. It is quite fascinating really, learning about sight. It probably isn’t to someone who has beautiful natural vision, but someone like me who is in a blurry mess most of the time, learning natural vision is quite interesting. It is a shame it has come to this, but nevermind, I am attempting to change it and with each day I am more and more confident it will be soon that I shall reach my goal.

Quackenbush teaches the 3 principles of natural vision – movement, centralization and relaxation. Knowing how we see and knowing these three principles is crucial in improving your vision. I have spent the week consciously incorporating them into my life. When speaking of movement, Quackenbush refers to how we see – not just staring at a particular object and trying to see it, but moving our eyes around the object, ‘sketching’ it. Our eyes are constantly shifting from one point to another – our eyes are never still. Movement also refers to blinking. In those individuals who have blurred vision, these qualities are often reduced substantially (we don’t blink as often) or are simply missing (our eyes don’t move they just stare). In order to see clearly again, one must learn to sketch/shift and to blink often and lightly. Quackenbush references the way children behave – they constantly are moving, exploring. Unfortunately we as adults are continuously telling them to be still, and trying to instil in them unnatural restraints that essentially have caused our problematic eye issues. Instead we should be like children and we shouldn’t restrict ourselves. Movement is essential to good vision. It is natural.

Centralisation goes hand in hand with movement and is the notion that the human eye can only see one point clearly at any moment. It is having one’s primary visual interest at one small central point at any moment and this is the only point that is clear and most colourful. Anything else is less clear. Anything in the peripheral is not clear. This does not work unless you keep shifting your attention to different points, to ultimately see the entire picture. When you stare you diffuse instead of centralise and this causes strain.

Now for relaxation, you cannot relax properly unless you breathe properly. Abdominal breathing is natural, normal breathing. Breathing through your nose is natural normal breathing. A quick 6 steps to abdominal breathing is:

1. Sit or lie comfortably.

2. Put one hand on your chest and one on your stomach.

3. Slowly inhale through your nose.

4. As you inhale, feel your stomach expand with your hand. If your chest expands, focus on breathing with your diaphragm.

5. Slowly exhale.

6. Rest and repeat.

You shouldn’t pull the abdominal in while inhaling and shouldn’t lift your shoulders up. This is extremely important and once done enough this type of breathing can become automatic again.

These are the three principles that I have been trying to incorporate into my everyday life regularly – all day and all night (with the breathing).

Everyday I have made sure I kept my eyes moving, my head moving and neck at least partially moving. I have sketched objects, blinked a lot and also tried to establish centralisation as well. I don’t think I am quite there with the centralisation (although I imagine I am – imagination being important too), but with the exercises I have I am hoping this will be in my grasp in the very near future. Whenever I sit down and have a moment I have sketched and attempted centralisation more consciously.

I have also noticed I tend to tense my jaw up a lot – I guess this is with the lack of movement in my neck and head. From the start of the week I had already made abdominal breathing an automatic function. I also tested this when I was quite stressed. As soon I felt overwhelmed I checked my breathing and found I was still abdominally breathing – this is usually when you might slip back into old habits! I also noticed with this that my shoulders and neck didn’t tense up and cause me excruciating pain as they normally would when I am under pressure. I have also found that I tend to not get as stressed as I used to.

By the end of the day my eyes are not sore and tired – they still are very fresh! When I walk about I notice how much I can see clearly and can read signs that I would have never been able to weeks ago. Also when I look at things I don’t *try* to see – trying hinders vision. When I do this I have had flashes of clear vision and although it is very quick it is fantastic! Overall I have had a very good week. I am enjoying the less tense, less sore lifestyle already. Of course I still have far to go, but once I have cracked centralisation I should be there fairly quickly. I look forward to relieving the all of the tension in my neck and shoulders completely. But this coming week I shall be incorporating some of the exercises every day in order to gain back centralisation. Wish me success!